Going to the chapel

It didn’t matter if you were the hunter or the hunted. If you owned stock in a company on either side of a big deal, you likely came out of Monday a happy camper.

The clearest example of this was Burger King (BKW) and Tim Hortons (THI). Tim Horton jumped 20% following a report the Canadian doughnut and coffee chain is going to be bought by the U.S. fast-food chain in what has come to be known as a tax-inversion deal. Basically, Burger King would move its headquarters to Canada to take advantage of the lower tax rates.

The other big corporate marriage news of the day was U.S. biotech firm InterMune (ITMN) and Swiss drug giant Roche (RHHBY). Shares of InterMune, which makes the idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis drug Esbriet, surged 35% following news this weekend Roche is buying it for $74 a share, or $8.3 billion in cash. Roche, even though it is the one laying out the cash, rallied 1%.